Malaysian GP – Thursday press conference – Pt.2

Nothing planned. We did one picture this afternoon, Felipe and me and members of the team in Turn 11, where the accident happened and I think that will be the memory for him, and the whole Ferrari family and the Italian people will remember him always and that's the most important thing.

Q: Paolo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport)
Fernando, is it true that you have a visibility problem from your cockpit?

Fernando Alonso:No.

Q: (Abishek Takle - Reuters)
Michael, we've seen that the Mercedes has pretty strong qualifying pace. Do you think you have the race pace to finish on the podium, given that you and your car seem to be a bit heavy on the tyres?

Michael Schumacher:We certainly understood in Melbourne that we have to do a better job in terms of race pace. I don't think we would have been able to achieve a podium in Melbourne, despite going all the way through. Probably a fifth place would have been the max that we could have had. Nevertheless, we have good ideas how to improve on what we learned from Melbourne. Whether that means we're going to be on the podium or not, that's another story because you obviously have at least four cars which are very strong, with two McLarens, two Red Bulls and then you have quite a big group of cars which are very close to each other. So it's going to be a challenge for all of us.

Q: (Gary Meenaghan - The National)
Question for the front row: not sure how closely you follow football but you may be aware that there was a player who had a cardiac arrest on the pitch. I'm just wondering if one of you could outline the health and medical tests you do throughout the year?

Jenson Button:Well, we all have a medical test for our licences, that is the only thing that we're obligated to do. Yeah, most of us do a lot of fitness, we keep ourselves in pretty good shape as it is quite a physical sport. That's as far as it goes for me.

Q: (Gary Meenaghan - The National)
Obviously professional footballers are very fit as well, but you can't see these things coming. Would that be something that would concern you?

Jenson Button:It's very different for a footballer. For us we're obviously racing for quite a long period of time, and it's more endurance. For them, there's a lot of sprinting involved, it's very peaky in terms of heart rate and what have you. It's very different to what we do. I read about it in the newspaper as well. It's pretty scary to see and it's happened quite a few times with footballers. I don't know what the reason for it is. There's no point in even trying to speculate but it's obviously a very physical sport and they're pushing themselves to the limit and I'm guessing that's possibly the reason why.

Q: (Andrea Cremonesi - La Gazzetta dello Sport)
A pair of questions for Michael: you drove a lot for Ferrari. How do you explain the situation they are in now? You are very close to Felipe; what do you suggest to him at this very critical moment for him?

Michael Schumacher:First of all, concerning Felipe, if I look at all the winter testing I think it was very clear that the two drivers were very close together. If you look at the optimum lap time achieved in the Barcelona tests, it's again very close. So to see the big difference that we saw in Melbourne, I can only assume there must have been something not right for him. He's been around for so long. He's been fighting for the championship in 2009, he's always been up front so I don't see any reason why he should not be capable of doing so in the future. I trust he will do so, and that the team will do their utmost to give him the support that he needs.

The first of your questions: there's no reason to speculate because I'm not inside so I don't know the details and there's no reason for me to comment.

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